White Paper on Technology
Developed by TESOL Technology Advisory Committee (TAC)

Topic: Podcasts

URLs:

Links for Teachers:
How to Make Podcasts:
Where to get Free Music for Podcast:
Links to software related to podcasting:
Podcasts for Students

Why this topic is relevant to ESOL Professionals

These days ESOL professionals are using Podcasts as listening content for their students, and for their own professional development. http://www.eslteachertalk.com/ There is an excellent article about it at: http://llt.msu.edu/vol9num3/emerging/default.html
  • Voice is more interesting than text
  • Engaging
  • Lots of Podcast topics, so lots of choices
  • It's cheap
  • Great way to do authentic assessment
  • Could be better than video because students are not distracted by images (with audio podcasts)

Why you need this information: _"Before any college embarks on a campuswide podcasting project, officials will undoubtedly ask a simple question : If we put lecture recordings online, will students bother listening to them ?

There’s reason to think that question might be answered in the affirmative. According to the Associated Press, a growing number of teenagers are now using their MP3 players as study aids. The numbers are still smallish — listening to podcasts and audio texts represents only about 5 percent of what teens do on their iPods, according to a recent study by the Harrison Group — but they’re growing steadily. So by the time students get to college, they may already have had some experience putting their MP3 players to academic use." Brock Read http://www.profetic.org/spip.php?article8683//

Links to example sites: Here you could give links to a few sites where teachers are already using podcasts in class. (JAM) I have these above. (CWD)


Links contributed by Aiden Yeh
Mignon Fogarty, host of Grammar Girl, http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/

Learn English with Bob, http://www.podcastalley.com/podcast_details.php?pod_id=4371

ESLPod, http://www.eslpod.com/website/

British Literature Podcast, http://lccccollegeenglish.blogspot.com/

Children's Books podcast, http://childrensbookradio.com/

Intro to Poetry Podcast, http://www.learnoutloud.com/Catalog/Literature/Poetry/Intro-to-Poetry-Podcast/25098//


How to get started: Here is a very short explanation below, but if you would like to try it, and want more information, check out the links to Poducate Me and Teach Digital above.


Podcasts are easy to create. Basically, you download a free program for recording, like Audacity, (make sure to install the Lame library file), write/plan your script, record it, export it as an MP3 file, and then upload it to a server.

The listener goes to your site and subscribes to your podcast. The listener should make sure they have a free Podcatcher program installed (example iTunes). When they open up their Podcatcher, the latest podcast can be automatically downloaded.


Common problems: Are there any here? We might want to complement this with something about using Audacity. Students of mine have had problems learning how to use it (JAM)

Some teachers and students do ned to have a tutorial in how to use Audacity. It is a very powerful program, so a short explanation about how to use the basics of Audacity would be helpful. Here is a link on how to use Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorials.html to learn more about Audacity. Others in the field prefer to use a program called Audio Hijack Pro which costs $32. Here is a link to the reasons why some prefer Audio Hijack Pro: http://www.poducateme.com/guide/index64.php